Fine wine yields drop. But Barolo vineyards are the most valuable in the world

The obvious and tangible difficulties in the global wine market are reflected in many different ways. One of these is that of wine investments, whose declining returns we have long chronicled after years of tumultuous growth. This is also confirmed by the traditional “Wealth Report” 2025 of the global real estate agency and luxury specialist, Knight Frank, which highlights just how the wine sector, along with rare and aged whiskies, and art in general, was one of the worst performing in 2024, in an otherwise negative environment. If the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index, in general, decreased -3.3% in 2024 over 2023, in fact, wine did -9.1% in one year, whiskey -9%, and art -18.3%, with the only sectors, among those monitored, in the positive (between +1.2% and +2.8%) being cars, watches, coins, jewelry, and luxury handbags.
A sector, wine collectibles, to which the new rich (those between 18 and 35 years old, for the first time the focus of a survey on the subject that polled 1,788 of the world’s wealthy young people) are on the fringes, as “wine collections” account for 4.4% of their total investment assets, dominated by real estate (29.8%) and luxury cars (27.8%), followed by private jets (15.1%), art collections (12.4%) and superyacts (8.9%).
But the structural difficulties of wine and its consumption, which, Knight Frank reports, have declined 12% since 2007, are also reflected in the value of vineyards. And while some world-renowned areas are holding up, others are in sharp decline. Such as the Marlborough area in New Zealand, which in 2024 saw prices drop 33%, to $110,000 per hectare, or the Barossa Valley, in Australia, at -10%, around $60,000 per hectare.
Within this framework, however, all of Italy’s best territories among those monitored by the agency seem to be growing, with Barolo, moreover, rising to the top of the world’s most valuable vineyards, at $2.08 million per hectare, up +5%, as are those of Brunello di Montalcino, which are worth, however, half as much ($910. 000 per hectare), and Bolgheri’s, at $810,000 per hectare, and Chianti Classico’s, at $180,000 per hectare, are also up +3%.
France holds its ground, which sees Margaux vineyards in Bordeaux listed at $1.25 million (-4%), Champagne’s grow +2% to $1.04 million per hectare, and hold those of the Cte de Nuits in Burgundy at 1.09, as well as (but with infinitely lower values) that of the Côte de Provence at $100. 000 per hectare, while growing by +5% the values of the Loria vineyards, at $90,000 per hectare, and losing -10% those of the Côtes du Rhone, at $30,000. Still, looking at other territories in the world, the value of vineyards in Essex, UK, grows +20%, to $120,000 per hectare, where Kent and Sussex vineyards are stable at $110,000. In the U.S., in Napa Valley, the value of the valuable vineyards of the Ruthefort area is stable, at $1.2 million, while those of Los Carneros lose -15%, at $290,000 per hectare, and those of the North Fork, on Long Island, hold on $250,000 per hectare. Still, stable are the vineyards of Rioja in Spain ($80,000 per hectare), those of Colchagua Valley in Chile ($70,000 per hectare) and those of Mendoza in Argentina ($40,000 per hectare), while those of Stellenbosch in South Africa are growing by 3%.